I have been in the studio painting and exploring more of red ochre and its relationship with other mediums and how that reflects directly or indirectly my Rooted in RED project. I started by reducing the Rooted in RED symbol which created an abstract space, in which I used multiple other shades (all from the original 8 reds from Dear Red). As I was doing that I was working with weaving canvas saturated in pigment. From the weaving the canvas I have moved onto creating skins of pigment cutting them and weaving them together. I have been drawn to the weaving, trying to master the technique and size that is manageable to hang understand its source. I have finished Waasa Inaabidda a book by Thomas Peacock on Ojibwe traditions. I have saturated myself in Ojibwe teachings and traditions for last few months and am finding myself becoming more comfortable allowing the knowledge that I am absorbing to regurgitate itself in red ochre. I was focused on the historical aspect, stuck rather, of red ochre, but I have not begun to view red ochre in a contemporary lens. The painting below is the beginning of that layering skins of red ochre onto a red ochre background. I am working with the collage mentality and that makes pigment an object, which is fascinating to me. Still referencing the artificial vs. natural in these paintings, the acrylic has always been the the artificial but I would like to address as the contemporary aspect of my studio practice.
With the acrylic skins that I cut into strips, I started to weave them. Using a simple basket weaving technique, just to see how durable the acrylic would be. It is very resistant to over stretching will reduce back to its starting form.
The next few images are of weaving into already stretched canvas. It has not captured the image that haunts my head of how I want this to turn out. I am working canvases that gessoed on the front, but I do believe I should gesso the back side as well, for keeping the shape of the canvas.
The image below has canvas saturated in red ochre pigment woven into a pre-stretched canvas saturated in Vermillion acrylic paint.
The image above is the same painting below accept it is woven with bronze acrylic skins.
The paintings below are from reducing the Rooted in RED symbol down and using the red ochre pigment raw and layering glazes of red ochre on top.
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